Manic
by Deathofme
Summary: [Post One room, One day] You're so manic. A crazed patient can't learn how to let go.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N **Post One Room, One day. Rated for language, rating may go up in later chapters.

Personally I'm conflicted about this episode, I don't think House was really acting like himself, but it started firing off little ideas for a new fic. I know this is really rusty, I haven't worked on any sort of fanfiction in a very long time, but it's nice to stretch those writing muscles again. Feedback is greatly appreciated, so please read and review!

Enjoy!

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* * *

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**PROLOGUE**

"Why do you need me to tell you these things? What good is any of this doing? You say you want a conversation with me but every time I say something you ignore it or you don't want to hear it? Do you think I _want _to be here? The only reason I'm talking to you is because you're suicidal otherwise!"

"I need your help."

"You don't want my help. You want to be validated somehow. I'm not the person to do it. You don't need to justify or validate yourself through me. Not only is it useless to you, it's quite annoying."

"I don't need you to justify anything I do—"

"But you need to argue with me. You need me to protest and take the opposing side, but not only that, you need to win the argument because you're really arguing with yourself and you're just trying to convince yourself that things are fine and that you're doing the right thing. That everything has meaning and God cares for you, me and all the abandoned puppies.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be your mirror. You can go fuck with someone else."

"House, wait."

"I'm _busy_, go."

"I love you."

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

"What?"

House poked his head through the glass doors to his office, in a hurry to get to the elevators. Cameron had paged him, about something stupid probably, and he was trying to avoid Cuddy who had been stalking the hallways trying to find him. Clinic duty.

"You got this in the mail."

Cameron held up an envelope, a little perturbed, but House strode over exasperatedly. What could be so important?

"Mail? You paged me because I got mail?"

"It's from Eve."

Eve. The rape victim. That's how everyone in the hospital knew her, he barely registered her name either, it always came back to The Victim. Shit. What was she mailing him for now?

"It's probably some Hallmark thank you note. You can put it through the paper shredder like the rest of my mail."

"It's…I think you should read it House."

He looked incredulously at Cameron.

"_That's _why you paged me? Because you want me to read a thank you note from some patient that apparently connected to me, so I can continue this magical cycle of human kindness and bonding? Yoga, herbal tea and candles with fragrance, why don't we all just have a relaxing girls night in?"

She still held out the envelope, neatly torn and already checked by her.

"I don't want to read it."

"House, it's—"

"I _don't _want to read it."

"It's intense."

"Of course it's intense, did you forget who it's coming from and what they recently just went through? I don't want to read it. Throw it out."

"No."

Cameron went over to his desk and placed the envelope in the little shelf-cubby against the wall. She placed it into the little cubby-hole where he kept his enormous tennis ball and gameboy.

"It's here. Read it when you're bored, on a rainy day, whenever. Just read it."

House rolled his eyes, heard someone yell his name angrily from down the hall and darted out of his office as fast as he could to escape the wrath of the hospital's dean.

* * *

"House, look over there."

House turned his head, he had been bobbing along with Wilson's car radio until his friend hissed at him to catch his attention. Wilson's head was turned, looking outside his side window. When House looked as well he saw a glimpse of blonde hair and he quickly sunk back into his seat.

"Keep driving, just drive by."

House leaned over Wilson and proceeded to roll up the car window, ignoring the protest from the driver, and then rolled up his own car window.

"Jesus House, I didn't know you would have spazzed out over this. I shouldn't have pointed her out at all."

"I just don't want to see her."

"I didn't know you hated her—"

"I don't. But I don't want to go through all that crap again."

The two doctors drove off towards House's place, leaving behind an oblivious Eve, sitting on the picnic table in the jogger's park she and House had talked in.

* * *

"What's the case?"

House was never cheery, but he was usually self-satisfied, and he had that mocking smirk on his face now as he poured himself his morning coffee and prepared to have his little ducklings eating his dust with the next diagnosis. He always loved spinning circles around their poor little heads, it made life that much sweeter.

"Patient 24 year old female, came in with lacerations over her body, mostly on her arms. Self-inflicted."

House frowned.

"She's suicidal."

"It looks so, yes.'

"Then why are we getting her case? If she's suicidal she needs to go cry on Wilson's shoulder and tell him how much life sucks. Why is our time being wasted with this?"

"You're the only doctor she'll see."

House was still frowning but then his jaw dropped.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Cameron looked helplessly at him and shrugged,

"I'm sorry House, it's—"

"Here we go again."

* * *

"What are you doing back here in my hospital?"

House had stormed through the hallway, his cane slamming ominously against the linoleum, and he almost broke the sliding screen door, he opened it with such aggression. Sitting in the hospital bed, pale, wan, was The Victim.

"Doctor House."

She said it with such hope, and with such familiarity that it made House visibly cringe.

"Why are you back here?"

"You sound mad."

"_Of course I'm mad_. Didn't we go through this already? Didn't you get enough of what you wanted out of me, what are you doing back here? Hospitals are expensive, why don't you discharge now and go buy yourself a nice dress instead of wasting your money here? I heard JC Penney is having a sale."

Eve looked moodily away from him, absently scratching at the bandages covering her arms.

"You were nicer before."

"No I wasn't."

She looked at him, knew it was true, but stubbornly looked away again.

"Look, I'm assigning another doctor to your case, I have other patients to see."

"What other patients?"

House looked at her and then with a contemptuous sigh he grabbed the case files Cameron was holding out of her hands. He flipped through each one brusquely.

"45 year old male with a chemical imbalance in the brain, nodules on the left side of his body, difficulty breathing, no apparent correlations between the symptoms—16 year old female with pain and tingling in the abdominal area, no sign of menstruation, awaiting a CT scan."

He looked up at her.

"Do you want me to go on or is that enough?"

"I'll only see you."

"You sound like a broken record, we've gone through this already."

"I'll only see you."

"You say that like you have any choice in the matter."

He caught her off guard there. He thrust the case files back into Cameron's arms, startling her a second time, and then with a nonchalant shrug, he walked out of the room.

"Wait! Doctor House! Wait!"

His three interns quickly followed after him, leaving Jenny and her pleas behind. Cameron looked through the files and frowned,

"45 year old male with purple nodules and a teenage girl who hasn't gotten her period yet?"

House shrugged,

"It's hard to be creative under pressure."

* * *

"House you at least have to go talk to her."

Cuddy was at her wits end, and she had on her soft, sad face. The one she always had on when she really wanted something from House.

Eve had been a most uncooperative patient. Every time she was assigned a new doctor she struggled during tests, threw things at them, refused to speak to them and once, got creative and detaching some tubing, showered a nurse with her own urine. They had to constantly keep her under sedation, the other option was that she tried to find ways to kill herself. She was wild, more than a handful and Cuddy was pleading with House now. In any other circumstance he would have been amused and would have tried to use it to his own advantage.

But this was something he _really _didn't want to do.

"Cuddy I'd sooner quit my job here than go into that room and have to baby-sit her again."

"You did it once before."

"Yes, and we talked about our _feelings_. It would have made Oprah Winfrey cry. I'm not doing it. If you think about this rationally, she already has an emotional attachment to me that is _not _reciprocated, after being in a situation that left her emotionally and mentally fragile. Nurturing and feeding that is a very dangerous thing to do, it is better that we keep any contact to a minimum."

Cuddy was still giving him that sad face.

"MI-NI-MUM."

"Just convince her to leave the hospital, okay? Do whatever you do, insult her, bully her, scare her, I don't care House, just get her to discharge."

"MINIMUM!"

"I'll raise your pay."

"Oh thank you mommy, I really need that extra allowance so I can go buy myself a second motorcycle."

"I'll let you off clinic duty."

"For how long?"

"Forever."

"No you won't. You enjoy owning my ass too much. You like all the privileges that come with that too, in fact—"

"House, no joke. Just…we can discuss it later, just get her out of here."

House thought for a moment and didn't budge.

"No we'll discuss it now."

Cuddy looked up from the mess of papers on her desk.

"You have something you want?"

"I get her out of this hospital, I get access to all of your private mail."

Cuddy's eyes darkened and she stood up, her hands clenching.

"Get out of my office."

"Do you want me to talk to her or not?"

"Get out House!"

Cuddy's pager went off before she could physically slam into him and shove him out of her office. She looked at it, her anger abating and House whistled to himself. He already knew what the pager was about. Who else could it be about?

"So what's she done now, cut her wrists with the hospital spoon? Switched her oxygen lines and given herself an aneurysm?"

"She's figured out how to collapse the hospital bed, she's threatening to crush her head under it."

House's eyebrows rose.

"Well, you've got to hand it to her. She's creative."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N **Installment two. The next might be a little longer in coming. Please read and review, and above all, enjoy!

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

"Eve, get out from under there."

"No."

"Come on Eve, let's talk."

Eve was lying on the hospital floor, she refused to look at the multitude of people crowded around her doorway. She had a hand on catch release of the last standing leg. All the heavy equipment in the room was on top of the bed, if the metal siding came crashing down it would kill her.

"You didn't want to talk before, I don't want to talk to you now."

"Liar."

"I'm not a liar!"

"Then come out. Indulge _me _then."

"Why are you being so nice to me again?"

"You're threatening everyone with a freaking _hospital bed_, that sort of behavior warrants some sort of attention, wouldn't you say?"

She could only see the floor, and all the bumps and dust littering its surface. The end of a cane came into view, along with the tips of two gym sneakers. The cane thumped against the ground twice.

"Are you going to come out of there?"

"Okay."

She took her hand away from the catch release and wriggled out from underneath. Her scrubs rode up to her thigh and she quickly smoothed them out again. House helped her to her feet, looking wryly amused but indifferent all at once.

"Alright everyone, you can go. Nothing to see. Just another angsty suicide attempt by an unbalanced woman. Nothing to see."

Eve smoothed her hair behind her ear, trying to ignore the stares of the nurses and doctors. They slowly filtered out of the room and she pointedly didn't look at House.

"So."

He sat down in the room's chair, his hands folded overtop his cane.

"So."

"So what's with all this fuss Eve? Why am I back in here again?"

She tried to act indifferently and shrugged, but she was still trying too hard not to look at him.

"I don't know, you tell me."

He wouldn't have any of it.

"Don't pull that bullshit on me, you just had half the hospital watching this spectacle of yours and now you're trying to act like it was all for nothing. Frankly I don't have time for that, now stop wasting my time and tell me what you want."

"I want to talk."

"You wanted to talk before too."

"I want to talk about why I'm doing this to myself."

"You're suicidal, go see a psychiatrist."

"I'm _not _suicidal."

He gestured to her bandaged arms with his cane.

"Then you must have a really vicious cat."

She didn't say anything and looked away from him, hugging her arms to herself, scratching lightly at them. A nervous tic.

"I'm punishing myself."

He twirled his cane and thumped it against the floor a few times, trying not to externalize his annoyance with her, but failing.

"For what? Being raped?"

"For killing my baby."

House looked at her, confused, exasperated and not even the slightest amused.

"We went through this already, didn't we?"

"I can hear it scream at night."

"It was a mass of cells, it didn't even have a throat, let alone a hyoid bone to produce sound."

"God's telling me I've sinned. I've done something wrong, I need to pay up for it somehow."

"By killing yourself?"

She fretted, playing with her hair, still not looking at him, trying not to cry.

"I don't know!"

"You think to make up your 'murdering' your baby, you should take your own life?"

House looked up to the room's ceiling.

"Isn't that the MORTAL sin?"

"I have to pay up somehow. A life for a life."

House's cane clicked against the room's floor several times with annoyance and finally he stood up.

"That is the _stupidest _thing I've heard, and trust me, I've heard plenty of stupid things coming from you already, but this is _really stupid_."

"I'm not stupid—"

"Why are you telling all this to me anyways, what exactly are you hoping to achieve? You know I thought your pro-life stance was crap before, do you think my opinions on suicide are going to radically change from one end of the spectrum to the next? I don't care if you want to go kill yourself, go ahead. Just don't waste hospital space, money and time because you can't figure out if life sucks enough for you to off it."

He exhaled deeply, closing his eyes, his cane clicking a few more times against the floor. Patience. He was trying to calm himself down, trying to be patient with her. She chewed raggedly at a nail as she watched what he would do next.

"You don't need me to tell you that you did the right thing with the abortion. We went through that already, and frankly it's too late now. It's done. You can't undo it. Move on. Don't think you need to punish yourself for the decision you made because God is mad at you. God doesn't care, you shouldn't care what God thinks anyway. What does he know? He's wiping his ass with some clouds, fuck him. You don't need to regret what you did, and you certainly don't need to punish yourself for having to go through all this crap."

He looked at her, concerned, frustrated, but concerned.

"Go see a psychiatrist. No one at this hospital can help you anymore. You are physically healthy, there's nothing more we can do for you. Go see a therapist, go tell her your weird guilt-punishment cycle. _They're_ good at dealing with self-destructive behaviors, and at the very least you can get better drugs there."

"Did you see a therapist?"

He looked at her, his sympathy for beginning to wane a little.

"Sure, I just got out of drug rehab. Go figure, you have to talk to one there."

"No. I mean for what happened with you and your—"

"No."

She looked at him smugly.

"Then why should I?"

"I didn't try to crush myself under a hospital bed."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Think about it."

His cane thumped against the floor a couple more times, he was getting impatient and he really, really just wanted to get out of there. She looked at him for a few moments more, and then she looked at her hands.

"Okay. I'll go."

"Good…Doctor Cuddy will recommend you to a good psychiatrist, you can take the first few sessions free and the hospital can subsidize the rest—"

"Yeah, fine. Fine."

"Alright then."

House looked at her a little curiously, all the life had just whooshed right out of her, and made to leave. He was halfway out the door when he heard a quiet,

"Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do to me."

* * *

House smiled to himself. Seeing Cuddy squirm, not knowing whether House was reading her mail or not, was better than the actual letters themselves.

Her private mail didn't interest him that much apart for that one reason. They were mostly bank statements or newsletters from different organizations or proposals from potential donors. He had only glanced through it quickly to see if there were any _personal_ personal letters (lovers? Family?) or anything from a sperm bank. Was she still keen on having a test tube baby?

It had been a few weeks from the Eve debacle, almost a month. He had celebrated by playing his gameboy, bothering Wilson and ordering around his ducklings for the day and skipping out on clinic duty. Ah, life was good. It seemed almost like summer camp, the lazy atmosphere to it all.

He stifled a yawn, placed the stack of Cuddy's personal mail onto a different place on her desk for her to fret about the next morning (why is my mail here? Did he move it? Did he read it?) and called it a night. He drove home on his motorcycle and sped twenty miles over the speed limit.

"Hey Wilson, you want to watch the game…"

He stopped talking and left a confused Wilson on the other line. Cellphone still in hand, House stared at his front door for a good minute.

"House?"

"Wilson, are you at my place already?"

"What? No, I'm still at the hospital, I told you it's going to take me an hour to go through all this paperwork—"

"My front door's unlocked."

"You must have forgotten to lock it. You do that sometimes, it drives me crazy, I always have to check afterwards—"

"It's open ajar."

There was a pause on the other end and when Wilson spoke again he sounded cautious.

"Do you want me to call the cops and come over?"

"No…no I think I know who it is…"

House hung up and gently pushed the door open. He walked inside his little apartment and looked about the usual clutter and mess.

"Eve."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N **Thanks for everyone sticking to this story, I had a good giggle session writing this chapter because I had House say 'house' a lot. Reviews are the best encouragement and way to communicate with me, please, please, please, leave a review. It makes a writer happy. With that said, enjoy the chappie!

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

"What are you doing in my house?"

"I had to see you, we have to talk."

"You're in _my house_."

"Please, I need your help."

"Have you been seeing your psychiatrist?"

"Yeah…we only had one session—"

"Good, stick with her."

"No I need to talk to _you_."

"Have you been cutting yourself again?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I can still hear it screaming."

House had put down his keys, had been trying to find a place to put his helmet, but that statement just hit him in the face and gritting his teeth in frustration he bellowed,

"Fetuses DO NOT scream!"

"I need to pay for it."

"You don't need to do anything, shit, look…"

He ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm down and then looked at her. She was sitting on his couch, her eyes were red-rimmed, her nose red, she had been crying, and she was pale again. Genuinely distraught. Or so it seemed.

"Why do you need me to tell you these things? What good is any of this doing? You say you want a conversation with me but every time I say something you ignore it or you don't want to hear it. Do you think I _want _to be here? The only reason I'm talking to you is because you're suicidal otherwise!"

"I need your help."

"You don't want my help. You want to be validated somehow. I'm not the person to do it. You don't need to justify or validate yourself through me. Not only is it useless to you, it's quite annoying."

"I don't need you to justify anything I do—"

"But you need to argue with me. You need me to protest and take the opposing side, but not only that, you need to win the argument because you're really arguing with yourself and you're just trying to convince yourself that things are fine and that you're doing the right thing. That everything has meaning and God cares for you, me and all the abandoned puppies.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be your mirror. You can go fuck with someone else."

"House, wait."

"I'm _busy_, go."

"I love you."

He looked at her, stricken. He walked past her, holding up a hand to stop her before she could say anything, and walked into his kitchen. His hands trembling he searched through his liquor cabinet for a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a tumbler straight. He downed it fast, choking back a cough and feeling it burn the whole way down.

"Doctor House…Greg…"

Eve stood in the doorway of his kitchen. He didn't turn around to face her, but poured himself some more whiskey. He got himself some ice for the second time around.

"Doctor House. Don't call me Greg."

"Okay, fine."

He took his time with the second drink, and felt himself calming a little. He found bravery in the alcohol and looked at her, straight in the eyes this time.

"You're confused. You're very confused. You are also in my house. You should leave, now. You should never try to contact me again. Trust me, we'll both be the better off for it, you can go find yourself some nice bank manager or something. Someone who makes money. Go out dancing. Something. Anything. Just leave. Okay?"

She scowled at him this time, furious. Something he hadn't expected and she exploded.

"Who the fuck are you? Who the _fuck_ do you think you are? You think I don't know what you're up to? Leading me on, teasing me like I'm a fish on a line. Well I'm sorry I fell for it hook, line and sinker. I'm sorry I can't play your game as well as you can. Are you happy? Are you happy about that you asshole! I love you. Maybe I can't hide it better than you can, but I didn't start this—_I _didn't start this!"

House was caught off guard, he looked at her confusedly.

"What?"

She quickly cut him off, close to tears and so, so angry with him.

"Why do you like toying with me? Why are you toying with me? I've been through so fucking much, I can't handle all of this. Are you trying to destroy me? Well, congratulations to you, you're making my life a fucking misery!"

She had come closer and closer to him the whole time she had yelled at him, and in her rage she grabbed his glass and flung it at the wall. It shattered, spraying glass and whiskey everywhere.

"Why won't you admit it, huh? Oh no, you just like playing your fucking game, you act like you're five years old. Well my heart is on the line here, my life is on the line and you think you can just play with it? Fuck you. Fuck you! What do I have to do? What do you want from me, what would you have me do?"

She looked at him, anger simmering, but rage dying and she looked at him, tenderly almost and stroked the side of his face.

"I'll do anything, just tell it to me, I'm no good at your mind games, tell it to me straight, I'll do it, anything, anything Greg, you just need to tell me…"

House was thoroughly spooked and once he registered how close she was, he quickly swatted her hand away and shoved her to one side. She had him backed against the kitchen counter, and without his cane he couldn't move away. He grabbed it, not wanting to be placed into that situation again, and he also had to consider using it if things got violent.

"Eve go. Before I call the cops, just go."

She looked at the cane, swinging back and forth and knocking against the kitchen counter. She smiled a little sadly at him.

"You say cruel things like that, but you're still playing your game. I caught onto that,"

She pointed to his cane and suddenly conscious of his movement he froze it in midair.

"All of your secret signals. So many of them. Is that you want Greg? You want to keep playing your game? You win, I've already told you, you win. Don't do this to me."

"_Leave_."

Eve looked at him a moment longer, but then she did leave. She hugged her arms to herself, picked her way through the broken glass and left without another word. House's breathing only slowed once she had closed the front door behind her and he almost sunk to his kitchen floor.

With shaking hands he dialed Wilson's phone, it took him several tries to be able to hit the right numbers.

"Wilson? We missed something. We missed something big."

* * *

"Erotomania."

House looked up from the encyclopedia he had pulled out to Wilson's face, trying to gauge his friend's reaction.

"She's an erotomaniac."

Wilson didn't say anything, and hoping that his friend's lack of response was still time he had to convince him, House pulled out several online articles and then attacked his white board with enthusiastic scribbles.

"Signals with my cane? You know I don't send any sort of signals, I just carry it around, if I knock it against stuff it's nothing I do on purpose. Erotomaniacs take innocuous gestures and believe they're secret signals of some sort. She thinks _I _initiated the relationship and that I'm leading her on somehow…"

He looked back to Wilson, desperate, he needed someone to believe him.

"See? Wilson see? It fits, it all fits, the perfect diagnosis."

Wilson's reaction wasn't what House had hoped for. The head of oncology spread his arms wide and shrugged his shoulders. He looked flustered and unwilling to believe it. The sheer enormity and absurdity of the situation overwhelmed him.

"House, this is insane."

"No, _she's _insane—"

"This isn't some—some obscure psychotic condition the woman has, she's upset. That's it, she's just upset House, she's probably going through some post-traumatic stress or something. I think you're looking too deeply into this."

"She was in my HOUSE!"

"_I think you're looking too deeply into this._"

House looked at his friend betrayed, and apologetically Wilson tried to continue gently.

"She's upset, she's suicidal, she trusts you, she just wanted to see you. She just wanted to see someone House, and you didn't want to see her at the hospital so she must have gotten desperate and found where you lived. Once she comes back to her senses, once she starts getting patched up emotionally, it won't happen again. It'll probably be too awkward for her to approach you again."

House felt an anger rising, why wouldn't Wilson believe him? Why did this always happen? No one ever listened to anything he said but he always ended up being right, why couldn't they skip the middle man and just take his word for it?

"She's doing all this because _I _refused to play her game here?"

"Why do you think it's a game? Look, maybe even you're a bit too far into this—"

House held up his hands and shook his head, disgusted. Wilson looked guilty, tried to say something placating but House's sneer of contempt only worsened. He picked up his cane, wiped his whiteboard clean and made for the exit.

"House—"

"The voices in my head are telling me not to talk to you. Lalala…"

House clapped a hand to his ear, pretending he couldn't hear Wilson and left. There was a taste of bitterness and disappointment in his mouth and he ignored the other times Wilson called out to him.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N **Hey, sorry for the long wait, though I think the next chapter will be a bit late in coming as well. This chapter's a big longer than the others, I'm not sure if this is a trend that will continue. Thank you to everyone who has been sticking with the story insofar, I'm very grateful for all your support. Please keep it coming with the reviews, thank you and enjoy!

* * *

CHAPTER FOUR

House frowned as he inspected his motorcycle helmet. There was a long blonde hair inside it. Feeling violated he silently swore that the helmet would now be with him at all times. He wasn't going to leave it on his parked motorcycle anymore.

She wore it. She had put it on, to see what it was like, looking at the world from his perspective. That sudden expectation of intimacy made him physically recoil and he could feel phantom prickles shooting up and down his right leg.

Ick.

He inspected his motorcycle carefully, mostly to see if she had screwed anything up if she had fondled it too. It looked alright, everything was in order…there was a palm print on the windshield and he wiped it brusquely. He thought of telling Wilson, but then remembered how their conversation had went the previous night and grimaced.

"House—"

"House—"

Cameron and Cuddy looked at each other, both having called for House at the same time. Cuddy, only giving her junior a second's glance, looked to House importantly and imperiously pointed in his opposite direction.

"Clinic duty."

House scowled comically and looked at Cameron.

"Case?"

"Our 30 year old patient went into anaphylactic shock eight minutes ago and now his heart rate is fluctuating."

House looked to Cuddy and shrugged his shoulders,

"Looks like I'm needed elsewhere."

Cuddy looked annoyed and sharply turned to Cameron.

"Why don't you just give him a shot of epi—"

"Allergic. Says so in the medical records."

"You're kidding—"

"Bye, give my regrets to all the sniffling children and the teenagers who shoved iPods up their asses."

House quickly went down the hallway with Cameron before Cuddy could bully him into turning back and going to Clinic. Cameron, believing his enthusiasm was a general interest in the case, brought out the case file and ran through the updates with lightning speed. Poor, naive Cameron, he had no interest in the case, all they had to do was inject antibiotics in a concentrated area of the man's brain where their unknown mass was actually an area of infected brain tissue under attack by a common enough, garden variety virus. Just in a rare location. Nothing special, and he waved the case file away. She looked up, caught off guard (as always) and he gestured to his office.

"Intense, you said it was intense?"

"What?"

House rooted around his desk, going through piles of mail she had sorted, paperwork Cuddy had sent (that he hadn't touched) and various trinkets.

"Where is it? You put it somewhere…"

"Put what where?"

"My junk, your trunk."

Cameron only gave him a blank stare, and he sighed, his clever wit obviously lost on the ignorant plebeian.

"That letter, from Eve? You put it somewhere."

"Oh, right there."

Cameron reached over and pulled out the envelope from its secure place in the cubby hole. He snatched it up without so much as a thank you and settled down in his chair, all his attention focused on the letter.

"House, what about the case?"

House looked up, momentarily distracted, and then waved her away.

"Just get Chase to do it."

"Chase is stumped."

"Foreman, then, Foreman's smart."

"Foreman has an idea, but none of his test results are matching."

House looked up, annoyed, at her.

"Well you're a clever little girl, got A's in school, why don't you figure it out?"

He looked back to the envelope, and Cameron caught onto the dismissal. Sighing she left, she'd have to do everything by herself yet again, sometimes she really just wanted to punch that man out.

House didn't register any of her frustration, he was looking to the letter. He gently shook it out and smoothed out the paper. It was handwritten on plain, blank stationary. Nothing special, the writing itself looked composed and not shaky, as it would have been, written under duress.

"Dear Doctor House, I want to thank you for all the guidance and support you have given me through my troubled times. I feel we reached a certain place together that not many people are fortunate enough to experience. I know we connected somehow and it was a deeper feeling than anything else in this world. You helped me out of a dark place, and know that I am always there for you. Yours always, Eve."

Cameron was right. It was intense, but nothing about it was definitive. There was nothing in particular that he could cut out and say, 'there, there's the kicker'. He frowned, deeply unsettled.

His fingers played with the paper for a little while, deciding whether to rip it or not, and instead they folded it back into its envelope and placed it back in its cubby hole.

* * *

"Lisa? Can I come in?"

"Sure, come on in."

Cuddy had been massaging her forehead, there were holes in the budget and she suspected it was House up to some mischief again, and had been distracted by Dr. Wilson knocking on her door. She stretched her back and welcomed the little reprieve from the endless administrative work. Wilson sat down in the chair in front of her desk, and tried to smile.

"You're worried, and it's about House."

He nodded.

"That patient from before, Eve—"

Cuddy rolled her eyes and made a tut of annoyance. That particular patient had been a headache. She had cost the hospital time, and time was money, and with all the upset she had with the staff, it had almost prevented an old man from getting a liver transplant because his surgical team was elbowing each other to get front row seats of all the mayhem action.

"—broke into his House."

"Why?"

"She wanted to talk to him."

"She's upset."

"That's what I told him."

Cuddy sighed.

"And he didn't buy it?"

"He thinks she's an erotomaniac."

Cuddy started laughing, her large eyes twinkling.

"He thinks she's obsessively in love with him? That is such a riot."

"I don't know, he seems really upset—"

"He's not upset. House is just using this to fluff up his ego some more and do some preening. He's doing it in his own backwards, twisted way, but trust me, this whole situation is harmless and if anything I'm worried for the girl. Who knows what stupid thing he'll say."

Wilson sighed, but tried putting himself at ease. Cuddy's amusement was reassuring, he didn't want to believe that the situation was anything serious or dire.

"You really don't think there's anything to worry about?"

Cuddy was still smirking and laughing to herself with malicious glee.

"No, we'll just have to put up with his histrionics for a while, but that's all, there's absolutely nothing to worry about."

* * *

"What the hell is this?"

Cameron looked up to see House frowning at a new letter he had gotten in his mailbox. The envelope was stamped with a Women's organization sigil. She frowned a little when she recognized it.

"I didn't read it, is that from the New Jersey Women's Shelter?"

"I suppose so."

House tore open the envelope and quickly scanned the letter. It was angry and self-righteous. Something about how fathers needed to support their children, that he was irresponsible, that he should be ashamed of himself for manipulating an already fragile woman into an abortion she didn't want, that he should be doubly ashamed of himself that he wasn't there to care for her after an emotionally devastating operation, that men were generally monsters in general and he was their kind and some more clap trap about how they were figuring out a way to wrap him up in legal chains.

"Huh."

"Anything interesting?"

"No."

He put the letter into his paper shredder before Cameron could read it and she made a noise of protest.

"Was it really that personal?"

"No, just loony. Nothing important. Nothing worth reading over."

He remained stony-faced and wouldn't say another word. Cameron just twisted her mouth a little, knowing something was wrong, but decided not to push it and handed him test results instead.

"You were right, we found the infected area in his brain. Foreman's started him on antibiotics. It should clear up in a few hours."

"Good, have him discharged after."

House stalked off, in a black mood. Cameron fingered the lid of his trash, toying within herself whether to look through the shredded remains or not, but a noise scared her into leaving the office too. Whatever it was, if it were really something big they'd all find out about it later.

"Wilson."

Dr. Wilson turned to see House, and a kindly expression grew on his face. House looked at him a little inquisitively and then rolled his eyes, scowling.

"Oh don't give me that look. You're humouring me before I've even said anything."

"I didn't say anything, House."

"You don't need to, look, Eve's gone to a woman's shelter and she's been having therapy and the main sob story she's been complaining about is me."

Wilson frowned a little, and tried to laugh it off.

"You've been following her to session?"

"No I got an angry letter from her therapist. Apparently I'm the father of her aborted child."

"No you're not—"

"That's the impression she's under."

Wilson was busy trying to process everything House had said, still trying to fit it into the nice explanation Cuddy had given, when speak of the devil, the hospital's dean rounded the corner and smiled pleasantly at the both of them.

"Doctor House, Doctor Wilson. Playing nicely, are we boys?"

"House that's absurd."

Cuddy frowned a little,

"What is? He bet he could stand on top of his cane with one foot?"

"I can do better, I can swallow it whole and regurgitate back up my left nostril."

Wilson opened his eyes wide and blinked several times.

"Wow, that was so distracting, I almost lost my train of thought."

"What is he going on about?"

Cuddy jabbed a thumb at Wilson and House looked broodingly at her. She would be the last person on earth to believe anything he said. Wilson spoke up for him, still blinking and trying to erase a bad mental image,

"Nothing to worry about Cuddy. If it is anything important I'm sure we'll hear of it shortly."

He grabbed House's arm and steered him towards the elevators. Cuddy felt like she had just been shunted out of their exclusive club again, and that they were probably having a laugh at her expense. She tapped her foot in annoyance as she watched them retreat.

"If you're causing trouble House, and it shows up on my desk I am not only cutting your pay, I will increase your clinic hours, do you understand me?"


End file.
